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You likely know we love a good conspiracy theorist here. For entertainment value it adds a lot to an otherwise dull story. In fact, one of our favorite blog-moments was when a conspiracy theorist left a raging comment for us regarding a post that questioned the existence of Big Foot. We’ve posted a few scales […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

Who’s scarier? Connor or Jamal? Or consider these names and think of who’s scarier: Wyatt or DeShawn? Raven-Symone recently got into trouble on the television show The View for saying she would not hire someone with a “ghetto name” (“I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea”). We blogged about this issue […]

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Well, okay—part of why it was not called ’12 Angry Women’ is because at the time the movie was made (1957), in most venues women were not permitted to serve on juries. But the research we’re featuring today says that even while on jury duty, it’s hard to be a woman. Today’s researchers had 210 […]

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Sh........ Read more »

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Risks associated with fracking have been inconsistently documented with the EPA concluding in June 2015 that fracking does not always harm water supplies. “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found […]

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You know this theory from painful and frustrating first-hand experiences. You present evidence and the jury ‘hears’ something else and bases their decisions on what they believe you said (or meant) rather than on the evidence as presented. While you (and we) know this happens over and over again, this week we finally ran across […]

Why is this post inappropriate?

Reviewing gruesome photographs and listening to emotional testimony about terrible injuries is something we do routinely. When we need to test their impact in our pretrial research, sometimes mock jurors (and occasionally trial jurors as well) are given the option of not looking at the photographs. They are put in an envelope, the envelope is […]

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We often read articles that don’t have enough content to make us want to devote an entire blog post to them but that seem useful or intriguing or just plain fun. Here’s a few more of those tidbits. “Illusory truth” and the repeated falsehood Back in 2009, we wrote a post called I never knew […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

We write often about lying and deception and none of us like to discover we’ve been lied to by either a stranger or by someone whom we know [or thought we knew] well. Despite how often we encounter dishonesty, there is a tendency to presume honesty in what we hear from others. So is it […]

Why is this post inappropriate?

Often, social science research studies have scales (i.e., paper and pencil measures) that may have relevance to litigation advocacy. When they seem to (or when they are just bizarre) we write about them here. If you’d like to see all the scales we blogged about over time, take a look here. It ranges from the […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

While you may not have heard the term “counterproductive work behaviors” if you are not in the habit of reading organizational behavior research, you certainly will recognize the behaviors when you see them: absenteeism, lateness, rudeness and incivility. This is an interesting study because rather than studying counter-productive work behaviors (aka “bad behavior”) they wanted […]

Why is this post inappropriate?

Apparently it’s all about motivated reasoning and uncertainty. When people hear new research findings that are unfamiliar or hear new findings that contradict what they already believe—they are likely to feel uncertain and confused. When you feel that way, it is unpleasant and you want to get back to feeling certain and clear about how […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

Most research has not shown police to be any more observant than ordinary civilians—even though judges and juries often make assumptions that police witnesses are more reliable than civilian eyewitnesses. New research by Dutch researchers shows that police observers were more aware of details in a drug deal near a hotel which had been recorded […]

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Some of the most striking images from the refugees who have been trekking across Europe are of families and children. Beyond the immediate perils of their journeys, migration inevitably changes families. As children are usually much quicker to learn new … Continue reading →... Read more »

Why is this post inappropriate?

According to new research with a large sample from all across the United States, the answer is yes! If you have read this blog for long, you know we love a good conspiracy theorist and use their idiosyncratic associations in pretrial research to plug holes in case narratives. The researchers briefly review the past literature […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

There are many things we read and discard rather than sharing them (and our take on them) with you, but other things we read and grin and think you might want to know. We’ve described these before as odd facts for sharing over drinks or dinner or around the office. It isn’t the most pivotal […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

I watched the second Republican debate last week after reading two more articles on voice pitch and winning elections. Not coincidentally, I had to struggle to keep from focusing on who had the deepest voice among the candidates. We’ve written about this line of research before and tend to think of it as the Barry […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

This is a fascinating study on how those that kill significant others or family members are different from those who kill strangers. The first author explains how these murderers are different, saying “These murders are usually in the heat of passion and generally involve drugs or alcohol and often are driven by jealousy or revenge […]

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Why is this post inappropriate?

A study a while back showed ‘above chance’ guessing of sexual orientation based on photographs of faces alone. The results were explained as proof of gaydar. Now, a new study says gaydar is not real and is a way to stereotype others that is seen as more “socially and personally acceptable”. They point to a […]

Why is this post inappropriate?

Here’s a study about road safety that doesn’t know it’s a nice indication of why litigators need good graphics. We have blogged before about the value of graphics so it’s good to see more research that is so sensible to highlight the value of the visual in the courtroom. Today’s researchers wanted to see which […]

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You can improve your litigation advocacy (for free!)

Why is this post inappropriate?

We recently posted new research on the secret to combatting distrust of science. Now we have more research on how to talk about climate change without setting off automatic and defensive reactions from listeners. Not many of our readers are going to be litigating climate change issues, but the challenge of discussing complex scientific issues […]

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Eyewitness identification and change blindness
Are conse........ Read more »

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